I've been so excited, waiting to make this post. I finally a physical copy of Amaranth: The Preterhumans Book 1 in my hands. In fact, I have 2 spare copies sitting in my hands. I'm working on some kind of contest towards at least one of those two. We'll see, yeah?

Earlier today, Amazon was showing two available copies for less than $10 before they get the regular copies ready to ship in a few weeks, but they're gone now; I'm assuming they've sold already. You should be able to get them directly from Cacoethes themselves though.

I might have to post a list of the books and such I'm getting ready sooner or later. I need to clean out my book shelves some to make room for more. I'm parting ways with the books I haven't read at all or that I didn't like very much... or are Expanded Universe Star Wars novels. I have my own reasons there, but the less said there, the better.

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So, I went ahead and made a new video post. I was going to wait till I had my ARCs of Amaranth in hand, so that I could show them off, but I finally got tired of waiting. My patience is long (too long, some would say), but it's not that long.

I have Hunter's Path and Mirror Doll, two of my older titles, sitting open behind Firefox. HuntPath has already been getting its revisions worked on, but it's definitely slow going.

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First off, on the writing front:Amaranth should be out later in the month, barring any further pushes back; here's hoping, anyway. Verdant is still confirmed for July as an ebook and August or September as a print book. I haven't received any edits or critical report on it, though, so I'm not holding my breath on those dates. I'm holding off on finishing Ash until I hear back on Verdant.

I've restarted the fund raiser towards the computer. It only is set for $660 ($600 towards the computer and $60 towards fees) and 20 days, 19 of which remain. Any assistance is most appreciated, as always even just passing the link on. This won't be enough to completely afford a new computer, but it will help me get closer to it. I'm still deciding if I'm going to go the local Apple outlet (aka Best Buy) or from Apple itself. I like the prices on the refurbished best, predictably. I'm a little hesitant to try eBay, but I'm not utterly ruling it out.

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It’s only a few short weeks till Amaranth: The Preterhumans Book 1 is released. Excited would be an understatement, to say the very least. I have not yet received the first draft of edits on Verdant: The Preterhumans Book 2, so I’m holding off finishing Ash: The Preterhumans Book 3 until then. Additionally, there are some sections that need some major rewriting (the perils of two marathon months of nothing but writing, I suppose).

I just picked up a new eBook to read via a contest. It’s called “Crux” by Moira Rogers. More information on it and the contest can be found at Bitten by Books (http://bittenbybooks.com/?p=4815). Definitely give it a look! So far it's looking pretty interesting.

On that note, I'm also almost done with Deathwish by Rob Thurman. I'm really enjoying the alternating points of view. Niko remains my favorite characters -- but I definitely dig Cal's sense of humor. The pacing is just absolutely amazing: taunt and almost terrifying. No, scratch that "almost". There has been a few times when I've caught myself shivering and wanting to check under my bed for "the Big Bad". I'll say no more than that, though, in case someone hasn't read this series yet (though I can't imagine why not), except to say: GO BUY THEM!

On a final note, there is a slim possibility that I might be at Dragon*Con this year. My friend Christopher is trying very hard to bribe D. Marie and me into attending. If he succeeds, I'll definitely post it here or over at Thoughts of a Struggling Writer.

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Before I start this, Wraith is still doing fine. He's my carrying around laptop of love. It's my desktop that's dying. I bought it on the cheap (really cheap, like $300 cheap, because that was all the money I could borrow) from Best Buy about a year and half or two years ago or so. It had 512MB RAM; I upgraded it as far as it would go, to 2GB RAM. It had a 120GB hard drive; I upgraded it to 220GB.

I called it Kaichan when I got it. Now it's Sir Saves A Lot. It sounds like a cute name... till you realize it's because I have to hit "Save" a lot when I'm working on anything. Microsoft Word is about the extent of what it can run on a good day; Word and Excel overloads it. If I have Firefox on, the most I can use is Calculator or Notepad. Sometimes (just sometimes) I can run Firefox and iTunes.

I had the first $500 set back for a refurbished iMac off the Apple Store. Car issues (a constantly blowing fuse) have severely depleted that fund down to about $150. I'm hoping to get more for my birthday later in the month, but I'm not crossing my fingers.

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Everyone and their mother is blogging on the inauguration today... so let me join the fray.

Several of us sat down in the conference room here at the library to watch the inauguration on the TV rather than join the hooligans downstairs. I even ordered pizza for us. (Which means Katsuko and I have pizza we can have for dinner tonight.) We watched from 11:30 till almost 1:00.

I was very impressed with the pomp and circumstance of the actual inauguration. I had to bite back laughing when Justice John Edwards screwed up the Oath of Office, but I tapped it down. All of us were extremely happy to see Aretha Franklin sing: she was fantastic. The poet could have been left off, though: her reading was very stilted, monotonic, and poorly visualized. She sounded like she was reading to a 5th grade class for them to take notes of the poem and analyze it.

Warren's invocation did nothing but make me giggle at how he enunciated Malia's name. Several of us were rolling our eyes during that. Lowery, on the other hand, was amazing. He had a sense of style that just was fantastic, he had the proper cadence for speaking, and I adored his closing:"We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."

All in all, a fantastic example for the first inauguration I've ever gotten to watch.

First off, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ASPCA. Secondly, yes, I am a huge animal lover - and cat lover specifically. I am owned by three little fuzz demons, named Aya (Princess), Naruto (Roo), and Malik (Boo). I have had cats my entire life.

I think any person who beats an animal because their significant other "paid more attention to them" than to the accused needs to be dragged outside by the hair and hung upside by their toes. Anyone who kills an animal for such a STUPID reason, drunk or not (I don't consider that to be an excuse), should be shot.

This monster claims he "accidentally" killed poor Norman in "self-defense". Stop there a moment and reread that sentence. Note the two phrases in quotes. A 200+ pound man "accidentally" killed a 7.5 pound cat in "self-defense". Norman was found to have "broken teeth, broken ribs, a broken leg, a torn tongue, massive internal injuries including bruised lungs and a bruised liver and a chest cavity filled with blood" when he died, according to the district attorney.

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I have about 40 pages of editing to get done with on Verdant before tomorrow. Hopefully this shouldn't be too big of a deal, but I'm not getting ahead of myself just yet. There is still a lot of day left but not a lot of time to get anything done.

I've added a few new icons, most of Illyria from my other journal but also one of the intended cover of Amaranth.

I'm hoping by this time next year, I'll have Amaranth and Verdant to take to the con and sell. That would so rock my socks.